


nights like these

by hallo catfish (ryuujitsu)



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-25
Updated: 2012-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-22 09:49:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/608480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryuujitsu/pseuds/hallo%20catfish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I'm not so old as I seem, you know," Merlin said.</p>
<p>"I'm not as young as I look," said Rory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	nights like these

**Author's Note:**

> Because I was a little bit heartbroken after the Merlin finale and thought it would be nice if Merlin weren't always waiting alone. Er, the title is a bit of a pretentious reference to the idea of 'ships passing in the night' among other things—Merlin and Rory meeting without realizing it.

Once, when Merlin was jogging through the streets of Camelot, dodging under the heavily laden arms of fishwives and merchants swinging their wares like weapons of war and ducking the occasional cascading contents of a chamber pot—when the colors of Camelot swirled around him, red and green and brightest blue, in the June sunlight, he saw a man staring at him—

A nondescript sort of fellow, tall and gawky with mousy hair, and rather large about the nose.  But he seemed to stand separate from all the hustle and bustle and the whirling people in their fine colors.  A young man, at a glance, but there was something strange about his eyes; blue they were, and wary, and the weight of years seemed to press upon them.  But all that faded as Merlin met his eyes with a stare of his own.

Now there was only incredulity and wonder.

“Mer—” said the man, eyes opening wider and wider.  ”Bloody hell,  _Merlin_ —!”  

Before Merlin could reply the man started, jerked left as though someone had grabbed hold of him from behind, and in a flash he had vanished into the crowd as if he had never been.

It didn’t make sense to Merlin until years later.

Many years later.

Centuries, even.

+++

_London, 1941.  The height of the Blitz._

Merlin had lived through the last days of the dragons and he remembered most keenly and painfully the war that had nearly brought Albion to its knees, in those strange young days, but he had never seen anything like this:  the world brought almost to its destruction, not once, but twice, one calamity upon another.

_Surely now_ , was the thought at the back of his mind, and often while he worked in the night or lay awake and dreamless, his heart would tremble within him.   _Surely now_.  And always his thoughts turned to Avalon.

But he dreaded facing Arthur in these nightmare days.  It was impossible to patrol sky and sea at once; he was but one wizard.  Every morning brought news of some new disaster, more death.  For every group of evacuees he shepherded safely into the green depths of the countryside, countless more were lost; another ship, another child.  Whole squadrons of ‘planes.  A firestorm that swallowed up half the city.

He did what he could, as one wizard and one man.  If Gladys Dale and Maddy Engelthorpe and Tom Gibb and all the rest of his ARP unit ever thought it was strange that one old man could find people in the pitch dark of the blackout, and shift the rubble unaided, and carry the wounded to hospital holding their lives flickering weakly golden in his hands, they never said.  Only  _can you take the bandages, Mister Em, please_ , and  _Hurry, Mister Em, they’re dropping incendiaries_.

On this particular night it was incendiaries again.  An RAF warehouse, engulfed in flames so fierce the roar of them was dragon-like, to Merlin’s ears.  Overhead he sensed ‘planes wheeling and rolling.

They did what they could to stop the fire reaching the eastern suburbs, Merlin calling on earth and stone to build the barriers, and then they stood helpless, the skin of their faces burning hot, the light reflecting orange in their eyes.  But as Merlin turned to go he saw a shadow slipping toward the blaze. 

He grabbed hold of it and held it fast, though it was a hell of a struggle.  The body was thin and tall and cold with metal, smelling of leather and sweat, and the voice frantic and boyish as it swore and demanded to be let go.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Merlin said.  “You need to get away.  It’s much too dangerous!”

“You don’t understand,” the boy yelled, “she’s in there, she’s in there and I told him I’d look after her—oh, my god, I was only gone an hour—Jesus  _Christ_ —”

“Listen to me—”  Merlin spoke quickly, made his words piercing and strengthened them with an undercurrent of magic.  “There’s nothing left for you now—get away from here.  Get somewhere safe.”

The boy tore away from his grasping hands and barreled towards the warehouse.

Cursing, Merlin ran after him.

+++

“Here,” the boy said.  He was wearing Tom Gibb’s overcoat now and his long pale face was blackened with dust and ash.  He held two steaming mugs in dirty hands.  Merlin accepted his cup with a nod.  Three centuries since the arrival of tea in Albion, and he still wasn’t sure how he felt about it.  Never mind that each cup summoned a sharp memory of tables cluttered with bottles and the mantel hung with drying herbs, and, at the center of the room, black cauldrons bubbling with strange medicinal brews…

_The door banging, and Arthur—_

“Cheers,” the boy said.  And then, quietly, “Ahh.”

Merlin made a polite noise into the steam.  Well, tea was nice enough to come back to after the cold.  Nicer still to have it to share with someone.  If that someone was Gladys there were usually little cakes as well, made with black market butter.

The boy cleared his throat.  “This is a mess, isn’t it?” he said.  “I mean, I’ve read about world—er, wars—in books, all the heroism and the insanity, but this is—well—madness.”

Merlin nodded.  “I’ve seen a lot of things in my time,” he said.   _Oh, the things I could tell you._   

“Oh, the Great War,” the boy said.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize.”

“That and others besides,” Merlin said.  He looked at his hands.  “You—have the look of a soldier.”

“Oh, er,” the boy said.  “I was, once, I suppose.  But I’m done with that now—done with it.”

“I fought alongside men like you,” Merlin said quietly.  “Men—boys, really.  Boys, we were.  We paid a heavy price.  It does—seem like madness now.”

“Well, that was a mad thing you did, charging in after me,” the boy said.  “But thanks.  Expect I wouldn’t have made it out of there without you.”

As Merlin sat silent, the boy coughed and said awkwardly, “I wouldn’t have thought—”

“It was no trouble,” Merlin said.  And magic had helped him move the box—a relic from the past, the boy had said.  Ancient and gleaming all at once.  They had dragged it a safe distance from the fire and left it for the repair crews to find at first light, though when the boy left it, he had touched it just once with his fire-blackened hand—gently—and Merlin’s heart had ached.

He added, “I’m not so old as I seem, you know.”

For some reason this provoked a bitter smile, and the boy’s eyes, blue-green, went dull and tired.  “Well, I’m not as young as I look,” the boy said.  “What?”

Merlin was staring at him, struck.  “But I know you,” he said.  “I  _know_  you.”

“I’ve just got one of those faces,” the boy said, awkward again.  “Er, I think.”

“In the market,” Merlin said, dreamily.  “Yes—that day—long ago, it was—you called out to me.  You said my name.”

“Er, but I don’t, um, I don’t know your name,” the boy said.  “Listen, are you sure you’re all right?  Did you breathe in too much smoke?”

There was a pain in Merlin’s chest, and his breath was coming too fast.  With an effort he stilled himself, clenched his fist and pressed fingernails into sweaty palm.  _It couldn’t be_.  He had always thought the moment Arthur came along, he would know him—from the bottom of his heart.

But the time was right—the time and the recklessness—the mad recklessness—the bravery.  Hair turned flaxen and gold in the light of the fire.

It had been a vision that he saw in the market, then, so many, many years ago.

Softly, he said, “Arthur—?”

Suddenly the boy was all over him, but not crying out “Merlin!” as he had expected, nor looking warily upon him—fingers on his wrist.

“Bit fast, but nothing unusual, given what we’ve just been through,” the boy said, more to himself than to Merlin.  “Listen, did you hit your head?  Are you feeling funny—nauseous?  You might be concussed.  Hey!  Can I get a blanket over here?”

“ _Arthur_ ,” Merlin said.  “Arthur, it’s  _me_.  Arthur.”

“Er, well, it’s Rory, actually,” the boy said, uneasily.  “Are you absolutely sure you’re okay?  Oh my god, are you all right?”  Real alarm, then, as Merlin dropped his mug of tea and put his head in his hands.

Merlin gulped.  “Oh, hell,” he muttered to himself, and heard his voice, old and cracked.  “Sorry—sorry—I mistook you for someone I—I thought maybe—sorry.  It’s just—” was he really about to go to pieces here, after so many years, in front of this boy?  “—it’s just,” he said, ragged, “I’ve waited so long.”

There was a  _clink_  and then Merlin’s shoulders warmed as the boy squeezed them.  He looked up.  The blue eyes were looking steadily at him.

“Who’re you waiting for, then?” the boy said, soft.

Merlin smiled a bit.  “A complete prat and dollop-head,” he said.  “And the best man I ever knew.”

“Gone away, has he?” the boy said.

“In a sense—yes,” Merlin said.  “And I’ll never be home until he is.”

“Yeah,” the boy said, still softly.  “It’s like that, isn’t it?”  And he looked away.  “What’s your name, sir?”

“Merlin,” Merlin said.  “Unusual, I know.”  

“Ah.  Yeah, a bit.”

The all clear sounded.

“Well,” the boy said.  He extended a grimy hand.  “Thanks again for everything, Merlin, sir.  Good luck.”

Merlin nodded, shook, nodded again.  Tried a smile.

“All right, Mister Em?”

Madeleine Engelthorpe had appeared with a thick woolly blanket.  She draped it carefully around his shoulders and patted it fondly into place, high up ‘round his neck.  

“Hullo, where’s that fellow got to?  Said he were a nurse!  Can you imagine?  Said he wanted to join up with the ARP, in fact.  Well, we could use him.”

Tom Gibb’s coat was folded neatly beside him.  Of the boy there was no sign.

“Nice-looking boy, wasn’t he?” Maddy said.  “Strange, though, wandering around without a coat.  On nights like these, too.  Mister Em?”

Merlin closed his eyes, breathed in.  Whispered spells of protection and love.


End file.
